If you are over the age of 50 and live in the United States
you probably recall exactly where you were and what was happening on this date
just as we remember those horrific scenes of September 11, 2001. I remember
being sent home from school and the adults talking in stunned tones about the
president being shot. We did not have TV
(religious reasons and a whole different story) so my dad and I listened to the
news on the car radio. I wrote Mrs.
Kennedy a letter of sympathy and in return received a copy of the Easter
picture they had taken prior to the assassination. I still have it. So, when I
saw an interview with Stephen King about this book I was intrigued even though
I do not normally read his books. In fact, while I have seen many movies and a
few miniseries made from his books this remains the only one I have read. I am
glad I did.
I began thinking the premise was a good one. What if we
could go back in time and change bad events. What would we change? How far back
would we go? Kill Hitler, save Jesus,
stop the 1929 Crash? The list could go on forever. So I suppose parameters must be set. No one
could go back farther than they had lived. Every time one traveled back things
changed. And of course, change is a reactor.
All these things came into play within this book. Jake has to determine why he is going back,
what truly needs to be changed and how that change will impact the world in a
much larger sense than just stopping the
death of the president.
I thought the book would be just about how he would keep the
president from being shot or maybe how he would determine whether or not Lee
Harvey Oswald did indeed fire the shots that killed John Kennedy. Instead I
found a well written story about a man finding what was important to him. If he kept the janitor’s family from being
killed by killing the father did that truly safe the janitor? If one person was kept from going hunting and
was not involved in an accident did that mean the person lived a good life? Could he find happiness in 1963 or could he
convince the love of his life then to come forward with him to the
present? What if the president
lived? Jake had to learn how to live in
the past in order to affect the future. Like the prime directive of Star trek
about leaving no interference in the development of alien civilizations, Jake
wrestled with what to do and not to do.
If he stopped students from drinking at a school event did that stop
them from dying in an alcohol related accident?
Does he use the information he has about the future and its events to
help himself or to help others?
All the many characters enhance the book. The green card
man, the owner of the diner, the principal, even the bookies all help make this
seem more real than fictional. One is the connection between good and evil, one
the means to achieve an end, one the connection to what Jake finds important
and the bookies, a reminder that even in another dimension, bad is bad and you
are better off leaving it alone. My
favorite character though is time itself. It doesn’t like being changed. It
fought Jake the entire way to Dealey Plaza. It created chaos where he was
seeking peace. It gave him room to
breathe and then began to choke hope out of him.
While I may not read another of King’s books I thoroughly
enjoyed this one! Maybe it is the history geek in me or just one who would like
to see what could be done if only time turned a different way.
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